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Buy the Tamron 28-200mm f/3.8-5.6 XR Aspherical IF Macro AF

(From Tamron lens literature) The world's smallest, most lightweight 28-200mm high magnification zoom lens. With a minimum focal distance over the entire zoom area of 49cm, and a maximum magnification of 1:4 (at 200mm), this remarkable lens achieves high magnification zoom performance with the compact size of a standard zoom lens. Through XR (Extra Refractive Index) glass and efficient use of aspherical lenses, Tamron has achieved a 25% reduction in size and a 27% reduction in weight over the previous model (Model 371D), along with a decrease in filter diameter by two-steps (72mm- 62mm) without compromising the superior image quality characteristic of Tamron 28-200 lenses.

Wish it went down to 18mm, a bit slow at 3.8(4)-5.6, body plastic 'creaks' at times when zooming

I have to say, I love this lens. I bought it last year on clearance as new old stock for $96 + $10 shipping. Came with a full warranty.

I'm using this on a Sony a55. I wasn't expecting SUPER great performance at such a low price, and didn't expect to use it a ton being that it's not 18mm and is a bit slow.

I was wrong. If I'm outside, I use this lens. I'm blown away with the picture quality vs price ratio. This is sharp all the way up to 200mm - I use this over my 70-300mm lens because the sharpness at 200mm is better than my 70-300mm at 200, plus it has less purple fringing.

The zoom is smooth, but it does 'creak' if in hot weather. Not sure why, it's still smooth and doesn't feel like it's being stressed or anything. The focus is acceptable fast. Not blazing, not slow either. I think the focus motor on the a55 helps out a lot with this.

I team this lens up to my Tamron 17-50mm F2.8 (AWESOME lens - holds F2.8 throughout entire zoom range - tack sharp) and I have the perfect "one two punch." I have a 50mm F1.8 prime and a Tamron 70-300mm, but neither of those see much use now that I have this 17-50mm F2.8 (for low light) and the Tamron 28-200mm combo.

Link to the Tamron 17-50mm if you're interested:
http://www.slrgear.com/reviews/showproduct.php/product/355/cat/23

This is a good lens for that price. Is sufficiently sharp, comfortable, relatively lightweight. Slightly slower and more noisy mechanics, but it is cheap. His biggest problem is that this is NOT A Macro lens. I shoot with a Nikon D80 and I have 18-135 lens, both are equally macro - ie they are not.

It seems everybody expects every lens to be tack sharp, ultra fast AF, and all for under $200. That is simply impossible.

What this lens is, essentially, is a vacation zoom. You buy a lens like this because you don't want to have to carry all your lenses with you, so portability is the most important factor. This this lens is fairly light for its zoom capabilities so it meets that criteria with flying colors.

The image quality is not bad either, i've seen softer images on some 70-300mm budget telephotos. AF works fine in the daytime, but is slow and sometimes gives up at night. Construction quality is typical budget Tamron. While it might not feel like a gem, everything works and seems quite tough.

The important thing when shopping for a large zoom range lens like this is to keep in mind what you are after, portability. This is one of the lightest of them all, so it is one of the best valued vacation zooms out there.

Light, Very Fast Focus with my K100D. Great during the day on out door shot.

Indoor at night time is not so great. Quality of picture become very dull

I bought this lens as part of a kit with my K100D. For 590-50 rebates, it's not a bad deal. The lens produced some very nice picture outdoor. For a range of 28-200 (42-300 in DSRL), the quality was consistence throughout the zoom range. The color is vibrance. Focus seem very fast. One problem was when it's on AF, it's kind of loud. In door is not so great. This lens make a great budget walk around lens. Indoor this lens fail because it's simple too slow for non-flash shoot.

135-200 not very sharp, lots of purple fringing above 135, must stop down 1 stop

My previous wide angle lens (sigma 18-125) busted right before a trip to white sands NM. I was in a pinch so I bought this lens and hoped for the best.

The lens turned out to be very good for the money, There were a couple of shots that I took at max aperture that didn't come out very nice, but as long as you stop it down 1 stop it produces great pictures. I didn't notice any vignetting at all throughout the zoom range.

Build quality is very good, with no hit of zoom creep. Also the auto-focus worked perfectly with the Pentax camera I have.

I won't pretend this is the best lens ever made, but I had to choose only one lens to go on a trip with, I wouldn't hesitate to take this one.

All of the pictures on my site from 11/28 - 12/7 were produced with this lens.
http://www.one-blind-eye.com/index.php?showimage=111

This lens is not bad if you want a low cost lens that can cover a large range, but, you need plenty of light, preferably sunlight, I find it useless for me to use indoors, mostly because I will not use a flash for the type of events I shoot (I don't want to blind my kid when he's fighting), so for indoor photogrphy I use a different lens. Even if I use it with a flash, when the surrounding light is dim, the picture quality with this lens seems horribly grainy. But as I said before, when used in sunlight the pictures turn out decent. I paid 75 US dollars for this thing used, so I can't complain too much.